Maximi Planudis in memoriam [Pt.1]

John Anderson

John Anderson MaximiPlanudisinmemoriam 0. Introduction The following remarks are not intended to constitute an argument that generative grammar originates with a thirteenth-fourteenth century Byzantine theologian or even that he represents the first European (?) generative grammarian. 1 I would indeed be somewhat perplexed as to how to interpret global claims of this kind - particularly in view of the everincreasing diversity of current work that might be characterized in such terms (cf. e.g. Lyons, 1970a). Rather, it seems to me that, on the contrary, it is on account of its exploration of notions as yet ignored (or assumed to be irrelevant) by almost all present day grammarians that the tradition of which Planudes is, as far as I am aware, the earliest extant exemplar, demands our attention. This situation is not unique. Our knowledge (and acknowledgement) of the work of previous centuries is intensely impoverished. Whole fertile traditions of concepts, hypotheses, arguments, protocols are either not now generally accessible, or, even where readily available, are assumed to be without current relevance. 2 This is particularly the case with traditions whose subsequent immediate influence has been small: such has been the fate of the Byzantine grammarians, and of the remarkable group of linguists who, in the mid nineteenth century, participated in the early meetings of the Philological Society of London. Something of the range of interests and speculations displayed by the latter can be discerned from the contents of the six volumes of the Society’s Proceedings (1842-53). I am thinking in particular of the essays on general, or universal grammar. Key (1847), for instance, attempts to show the relatedness of demonstratives, definite articles, third person pronouns, and relative and interrogative pronouns, 3 and, incidentally (67-8), a connexion between relative clauses and co-ordinate conjoined sentences. 4 Garnett (1846) discusses the phenomenon of morphological derivation by ‘superdeclension’, whereby in Basque, for instance, ‘adjectives’ can be formed from the oblique cases of nouns and thus become susceptible to bearing a second inflexion, 5 and proceeds (1847) to argue that many (at least) so-called ‘participles’ have their source in (the oblique case of) a verbal noun, his starting-point being the analysis of the Basque verb offered by Darrigol (1829). 6 In view of my preceding confession of ignorance, I am clearly not primarily concerned in asserting priority for these scholars with respect to all the various hypotheses and arguments they propose; in many instances this is clearly not the case, and they themselves are aware of at least contemporary work originating elsewhere, particularly in Germany. I merely want to indicate the existence of a relatively neglected 1 A brief account of the life and works of Maximus Planudes (together with some bibliographical information) is provided in Ziegler, 1950: 2202-53. Texts of two grammatical works are printed in Bachmann, 1828: 3-101, 105-66. I would like to acknowledge here my indebtedness to David Tittensor for his comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2 It is particularly unfortunate that many such valuable investigations should be dismissed as irrelevant to ‘scientific’ linguistics (cf. e.g. Hall 1969) on the basis of some eccentric delimitation of what constitutes science. See also note 7. 3 Compare, for instance, Postal 1966. 4 Cf. Annear 1967; Lakoff 1967: ch.1. 5 As an example, consider Basque etche ‘house’; etcheko ‘of from the house’; etchekoak ‘the people from the house’ (Lafitte 1962: §146). 6 For further discussion, see Anderson in preparation. Compare too the discussion in another paper by Key (1853: 69-72). 1